Making love or making war isn’t exactly a game or pastime—except, perhaps, to Lotharios, on one hand, or to some generals, on the other; but to Ino Caluza Jr., it appears to be both, and serious ones at that, at least in his Steel Life.

That’s the title he has given his collection of brightly colored, moderately large paintings, in oil pastel or acrylic on paper, that serves as his introductory art exhibit.

“Steel Life is my departure from the traditional, decorative still life,” Caluza explains, adding:

“I have consciously moved away from the usual vase of flowers, bowl of fruit, and other ‘pretty’ objects culled from the kitchen, dining table or living room. I have opted instead to enlarge the domain of the domestic by rendering objects found among the clutter of the work table or the garage.”

The “clutter” includes corrugated round iron with metal pulley, screws, safety pins, locks, clip binders, faucets, electrical plugs —“incongruous parts that for some reason or another never found their way into the whole.”

“So what else is left for these small parts when not in use?”, Caluza asks. “I imagine them to be still hard at work and, because devoid of purpose, at play as well : making love or making war.”

His self-confessed fascination with these “de-functionalized” objects has obviously caused his imagination to run wild, with his fantasies—laced with wit or mischief, provided such individual titles as The War Of The Irons,  The Gunslinger, Duel at High Noon, and Intergalactic Coupling.

Caluza, aged 31, graduated in 1992 from the University of Santo Tomas with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics, major in computer science. Now the art director of a publishing company, he has been into graphic design since 1993.